Howdy! My group and I have finished creating our first Outpost 5 colony, generated a map, created characters, and gotten geared up. We have a few randomly-generated leads to follow on the sector map, and we're eager to get started exploring this strange and dangerous new world.

As we get ready to start this up, I realize I'm feeling uncertain about the intended play-style w.r.t. moving back and forth from the Outpost Phase to the Mission Phase (rulebook page 5)...

1. When the game begins, are we in the Outpost Phase or do we dive right into a Mission Phase? 
2. Given an Outpost Phase cycle is a calendar month, is it reasonable to think there may be more than one Mission Phase per Outpost Phase, depending on distance and travel time? Or is the game set up with the expectation that there's only one Mission Phase and one Outpost Phase per Cycle?

Glad to share! Thanks for calling out the "one week downtime or exhaustion + stress" consequence, that's definitely an important pacing mechanism. Will be sure to pass along a detailed AAR when we have some Mission and Outpost Phases under our belt